Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hyeon Een]

I love this guy.

He's hilarious and writes well. He wrote an excellent book about S. Korea (The Koreans) and writes regularly in one of the major English language dailies as well as appearing on the radio. He is honest AND humorous. He obviously likes living here but he makes known the stuff he hates about the place. He seems to stand back from everyday life and really anaylze it to get to the crux of whichever matter he is pontificating. He also comes across as a good bloke who'd be wonderful company to sup an 오백CC with in a Hof somewhere.

I rate him as the Best English Gentleman In Korea. What do you all think? Do you have a better BEGIK?

[CPT]

Definitely thought this was a thread about the NBA play-by-play guy.

Disappointing.

[Blockhead confidence]

In that book 'The Koreans' there is one passage where he does some *beep* baiting down in Itaewon. I forget exactly why he decided to ask a prostitute for her going rate - there was some slight connection with his topic - but he does so and then just walks away. She asks him as he walks off, 'why did you ask me that?', to which he replies '그냥' ("just, y'know").

This is very cleverly written as it allows us to marvel at Breen's grasp of Korean as it is spoken, and we also get to laugh at the slow wits of a prostitute. A gentleman of the first order.

[Blockhead confidence]

The *beep* rhymes with 'door'

[Milwaukiedave]

I also liked Breen's book and still have it on my bookshelf. There are parts of the book where I literally laughed out loud while reading it. There aren't many books that do that. Sometimes the irony of his stories are just too funny.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Just yesterday I was skimming through one of his books at Kyobo. I was very disappointed by the generalisations and inaccuracies it contained re: Korean education. The original was publised in 1998 but even if he's talking about ten years ago it sounded very uninformed.

[BreakfastInBed]

There's a line somewhere in his book that comes back to me almost everyday. I'll have to paraphrase, I don't remember the exact wording. He describes the Koreans as having a "can do" attitude and a "that will do" work ethic. It may not be unique to Korea, but I can't think of a better way to describe some of the things I see happening around me at work on a daily basis. A fun book, he'd be a neat guy to know.